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Marvel to re-evaluate phases 5 and 6 after knowingly having a poor quality phase 4

ANDS

King of Gaslighting
It's been 100% confirmed that Kang the Conqueror is the main villain of this set of phases.

The next Avengers movie is even going to be called Dynasty of Kang or something like that.

Yes, that is what I mean: three years (with a release date of 2025) is a wildly compressed time frame to try and do another event movie on the same level as Ininity/Endgame in terms of setup, especially when this is all seemingly starting in one of their smaller properties (Ant-Man makes money but it isn't drawing the most eyes).
 

RAÏSanÏa

Member
The music for Loki is so distinctive and has


I love that string sound.

The music selection and placement overall was great. Catchy and appropriate to the scenes/characters.


And the way it was integrated from the intro into the background of the scene in a way that suits Loki pulling it from C20's memory to generate a sense of fun during the monotony of the interrogation.


A favourite new pop song and find myself humming it time to time when doing similar things. Best placement in a series of the phase with Dark Moon very close 2nd.
 
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Doom85

Member
hawkeye daughter

Jon Stewart What GIF


Unless there’s some twist in the comics I was unaware of, Kate Bishop is not Clint Barton’s daughter.

Also, Hulk and Hawkeye are still present for now.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
There is definitely a charisma deficit in the current line-up, Tom Holland can't carry a film by himself, Hemsworth can but not how they are treating his character now. Mackie....he is cool in interviews but damn, he is an energy suck on screen. Larson? Nope. Simu? Nope. Cumberbiatch is all support character even though I like him. Ant-man? Nope, they already neutered him in the face of the Avengers, at length!

I just don't see how they can generate any forward momentum, which is what propelled everything into IW/Endgame, carrying a lot of subpar characters with it, making folks think those characters were stars in their own right.
 

WoJ

Member
Marvel ended for me with endgame. They told the story they set out to tell. Now they're left with neutered versions of original avengers (Thor, Hulk), side characters or charisma vacuum z-lister.

Give me more stories with the original Avengers or just blow it all up and focus solely on X-Men.
 

gatti-man

Member
There is definitely a charisma deficit in the current line-up, Tom Holland can't carry a film by himself, Hemsworth can but not how they are treating his character now. Mackie....he is cool in interviews but damn, he is an energy suck on screen. Larson? Nope. Simu? Nope. Cumberbiatch is all support character even though I like him. Ant-man? Nope, they already neutered him in the face of the Avengers, at length!

I just don't see how they can generate any forward momentum, which is what propelled everything into IW/Endgame, carrying a lot of subpar characters with it, making folks think those characters were stars in their own right.

Have good scripts, good actors, and well directed movies. You don’t need some personality actor to carry these movies. The best of marvel has always been the movies that were taken seriously with moments of comedy/charisma. The winter soldier, first iron man, avengers, civil war, Capt America, infinity war, all were serious films.

Stage 4 has had largely C tier actors, SHIT scripts (black widow, eternals, thor 4, even Shang chi), no over arching dynamic, no stakes, forgettable trash tier villains. It almost felt like marvel just kindof had these ideas for movies that were too shitty during Thanos so when that was over they pushed them out to the curb all at once. Especially BW like holy shit what a terrible movie given what it could have been.
 
to many series which obviously people without disney plus wont watch (
to many films of new characters
They should do a 'James Bond' and take a 5yr break.
This is the key. They lost track the minute they tried to pull an Activision and CoDify marvel movies and TV. Everyone is blaming them getting rid of previous A-list heroes or they’re using trendy word bingo(like wokeness), but the real issue is that they need to slow it down.

The real A-listers(that even casual audiences knew easily) in Marvel before the MCU were X-men, Captain America, and Spiderman. Phase 1-3 MCU managed to get people to like Iron Man, Bucky, Hawkeye, Black Widow, Dr. Strange, Wanda, Vision, Thor, and Black Panther. It’s because their content wasn’t coming out nearly every month so we had time to take everything in. Phase 4 has felt like a blur because when you’re just starting to finish a show or movie, another one is already coming out for you to go watch.

They need to slow it back down. Let people get to know these new heroes and give the writers and CG artists more time to produce something way better and less rushed. This factory method of rushing content isn’t working in the long run and it’s going to decay the brand.

Also, What’s there to rush to? DC isn’t coming for the crown anymore so there’s no need to pump out constant content for competition.
 

pramod

Banned
It was self indulgent trash and a clear sign that post Endgame, The MCU is clearly past its peak and on a fast, downward trajectory into irrelevance.

Yeah even the inclusion of Guns n Roses made the movie worse. I never figured out what GnR had to do with the movie, it was just like "hey lets play Welcome to the Jungle when Thor beats up baddies yeeaahhh!" Everything just felt indulgent and lazy. Whereas in Ragnarok the Immigrants Song was a perfect fit for the movie.
 
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Lambogenie

Member
As soon as they announced Phase 4/released Black Widow, I already decided this was going to be like the comics in that I probably won't watch everything anymore, because I just don't care about every single character they intend to do. E.g. I don't care about Loki really, I don't care about new Captain America (if it were Bucky, yes), I don't care about Eternals, or Ant-Man. So just like the comics, I'll stick to the ones I like (Spider-Man) any big cross-over they're in and the big event movie, that's it.
They should probably start focusing on movie only again,
 

Trogdor1123

Gold Member
As soon as they announced Phase 4/released Black Widow, I already decided this was going to be like the comics in that I probably won't watch everything anymore, because I just don't care about every single character they intend to do. E.g. I don't care about Loki really, I don't care about new Captain America (if it were Bucky, yes), I don't care about Eternals, or Ant-Man. So just like the comics, I'll stick to the ones I like (Spider-Man) any big cross-over they're in and the big event movie, that's it.
They should probably start focusing on movie only again,
I was thinking this too. Problem is they don’t alwYs make the movies self contained. Dr Strange wouldn’t have made sense without watching wandavision for example. It seems to be getting worse too
 

kruis

Exposing the sinister cartel of retailers who allow companies to pay for advertising space.
As soon as they announced Phase 4/released Black Widow, I already decided this was going to be like the comics in that I probably won't watch everything anymore, because I just don't care about every single character they intend to do. E.g. I don't care about Loki really, I don't care about new Captain America (if it were Bucky, yes), I don't care about Eternals, or Ant-Man. So just like the comics, I'll stick to the ones I like (Spider-Man) any big cross-over they're in and the big event movie, that's it.
They should probably start focusing on movie only again,

The Marvel movies became mega blockbuster because they focused on the most popular Marvel superheroes: Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Avengers. So what does Disney do? They kill off two of their most popular characters, don't make any more Avengers movies, turn Thor into a caricature and focus on new characters nobody really cares about because diversity trumps popularity. It's just incredible how Disney went from being the movie studio with the biggest movie blockbusters in the world to this. Didn't anyone at Disney have second thoughts about the wisdom of making Mrs Marvel/Eternals/Black Widow/Shang Chi-movies instead of another Iron Man, Captain America or Avengers movie?
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
Disney thought folks were turning up for THE MCU, and I can't blame them for thinking that because when stuff like Black Panther, Dr. Strange, and Captain Marvel were pulling in hundreds of millions they assumed folks cared about ALL of it, rather than the "Avengers Effect" of folks jumping on board anything Marvel to get one more nugget of info for IW and/or Endgame. But the reality is that only a few of those characters/stories were doing ALL of the heavy lifting and everyone else was getting dragged in their wake. So now we see that most of that stuff is sinking as it should.
 

DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
The Marvel movies became mega blockbuster because they focused on the most popular Marvel superheroes: Iron Man, Captain America, Thor, The Avengers. So what does Disney do? They kill off two of their most popular characters, don't make any more Avengers movies, turn Thor into a caricature and focus on new characters nobody really cares about because diversity trumps popularity. It's just incredible how Disney went from being the movie studio with the biggest movie blockbusters in the world to this. Didn't anyone at Disney have second thoughts about the wisdom of making Mrs Marvel/Eternals/Black Widow/Shang Chi-movies instead of another Iron Man, Captain America or Avengers movie?

RDJ was getting to be too expensive... Chris Evans was getting too expensive and also wanted to do other things instead of MCU...

They should have introduced some of the newer characters in other movies... And had some of the old characters appear in the newer character movies like Eternals. Like Shang-Chi did.
 

kruis

Exposing the sinister cartel of retailers who allow companies to pay for advertising space.
RDJ was getting to be too expensive... Chris Evans was getting too expensive and also wanted to do other things instead of MCU...

They should have introduced some of the newer characters in other movies... And had some of the old characters appear in the newer character movies like Eternals. Like Shang-Chi did.

But what was stopping Disney from hiring other actors to play these characters? We've had numerous actors playing Batman and Spider-man, didn't hurt those franchises one bit. It's even more common outside of superhero movies.
 

DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
But what was stopping Disney from hiring other actors to play these characters? We've had numerous actors playing Batman and Spider-man, didn't hurt those franchises one bit. It's even more common outside of superhero movies.

Spider-Man had multiple reboots. Batman saw diminishing returns after they recast Keaton... And then recast Kilmer with Clooney... Batman and Robin so BADLY hurt the franchise that they took a decade off and rebooted again ... They went so wildly off course, each Batman is confirmed to be a different universe Batman and not the same from the previous. "this is why Superman works alone" ...

When Bale took over and then finished with The Dark Knight Rises, they rebooted again.

Almost all Batman films that don't have the same previous actor are different universe Batmen. Basically a reboot each time. Kilmer was nothing like Keaton and Clooney was nothing like Kilmer. Even with the same supporting cast, the CHARACTER of Batman/Bruce Wayne was very different.

Fans would have cried foul had they recast Iron Man and Steve Rogers.

Also, at the end of Endgame, were people thinking Steve passing the shield to Sam was somehow magically going to be given to Bucky? Even though Steve NEVER gave it to Bucky? He ONLY gave it to Sam .. just like in the movie.
 

BlackTron

Member
This is what they said after Solo for Star Wars and instead of quality over quantity they just released a bunch of TV shows.

Once Mandalorian took off, they changed course. The instant something seems to work for Marvel, they will dial it up to 11.

It's weird to be saying this because they used to be the gold standard of IP management. The "Disney vault strategy" that gets compared to Nintendo. To now they just spam as much as possible trying to ride the brand names. Complete breakdown of what made the whole thing work. That they manage to spend such obscene amounts of money on these lame shows while they are at it, the whole thing smells. They have become Microsoft, buy up IP, mismanage it while blowing company money
 

FunkMiller

Gold Member
RDJ was getting to be too expensive... Chris Evans was getting too expensive and also wanted to do other things instead of MCU...

They should have introduced some of the newer characters in other movies... And had some of the old characters appear in the newer character movies like Eternals. Like Shang-Chi did.

All true, but they still fucked it up badly by thinking they could throw B-list characters at the screen and still do the same business.

How Spider-man wasn’t out front and centre in a new over-arcing storyline, I’ll never know. And Thor should have properly taken centre stage. And they should have recast T’challa.

We could, and should be building up to a new Avengers film with this group:

Spider-man
Thor
Hulk
Dr Strange
Ant Man
Black Panther
Captain Marvel

…but we all know why we’re not, don’t we?
 

Liamario

Banned
It's B-list characters with C grade writing. The excessive focus on diversity and virtue signalling wouldn't be a problem if the product was good.
I'm all for diversity, in fact professor X and magneto should be black for their MCU iterations. But when you push diversity and then the product that goes with it doesn't back it up, people wrongly correlate the two.
 

Dazrael

Member
It looks like they are going for the mid 80s roster for The Avengers sans Cap and Iron Man. So they’ve already introduced Starfox, Black Knight, Captain Marvel (in the guise of Spectrum) and Hercules. I’m expecting Tigra to pop up out of nowhere if there is a season 2 of She-Hulk.

The thing is this iteration of The Avengers has a load of B-tier character’s that would never equal the original line up. However it is canon to the comics. Whether the public gets on board with this is key though as they are a bunch of nobodies.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
It looks like they are going for the mid 80s roster for The Avengers sans Cap and Iron Man. So they’ve already introduced Starfox, Black Knight, Captain Marvel (in the guise of Spectrum) and Hercules. I’m expecting Tigra to pop up out of nowhere if there is a season 2 of She-Hulk.

The thing is this iteration of The Avengers has a load of B-tier character’s that would never equal the original line up. However it is canon to the comics. Whether the public gets on board with this is key though as they are a bunch of nobodies.
Any of those could work, I don't think the actual superheroes matter much, it's the combination of
A. a charismatic actor playing the role
B. the hero has motivations and desires that are relatable
C. the hero has a power set that maintains internal consistency and has some fun applications
D. the VILLAIN has motivations and desires that naturally puts them at odds with the heroes
E. conflict isn't just for a cgi light show, it advances or retards each characters goals, allows them to push past a defined boundary, and follows a progression of intensity and emotional stakes the audience can invest in.

Do all this and the hero from the page is somewhat irrelevant, they all fall into 4-5 basic categories anyway. But current MCU is violating most of these basic storytelling tenets, so they fail.
 

FunkMiller

Gold Member
Any of those could work, I don't think the actual superheroes matter much.

See, I kind of do.

While it's perfectly possible to elevate lesser known characters through great characterisation and storytelling (Guardians) there is something inherent about the biggest superhero characters that can't be matched, when you're talking about ongoing success at the box office and in popular culture as a whole.

That's why Batman and Spider-man remain top of the tree culturally, and why I'm not worried about the next Superman film doing well, as long as they actually get the character right this time.

I think Marvel really should have taken something of a break while they worked out how the X-Men and FF4 fit into this universe. It's okay to make movies about lesser characters, but you can't structure the whole damn thing around them. They performed a miracle with phase 1 by elevating well known, second tier characters to top tier status, but you don't get to repeat that twice.

Hubris meant they thought they could repeat the success with third tier characters, and that wasn't ever going to work.
 

DeafTourette

Perpetually Offended
See, I kind of do.

While it's perfectly possible to elevate lesser known characters through great characterisation and storytelling (Guardians) there is something inherent about the biggest superhero characters that can't be matched, when you're talking about ongoing success at the box office and in popular culture as a whole.

That's why Batman and Spider-man remain top of the tree culturally, and why I'm not worried about the next Superman film doing well, as long as they actually get the character right this time.

I think Marvel really should have taken something of a break while they worked out how the X-Men and FF4 fit into this universe. It's okay to make movies about lesser characters, but you can't structure the whole damn thing around them. They performed a miracle with phase 1 by elevating well known, second tier characters to top tier status, but you don't get to repeat that twice.

Hubris meant they thought they could repeat the success with third tier characters, and that wasn't ever going to work.

They really should have ended phase 4 with an avengers film. It makes no sense to wait til phase 6 for avengers
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
See, I kind of do.

While it's perfectly possible to elevate lesser known characters through great characterisation and storytelling (Guardians) there is something inherent about the biggest superhero characters that can't be matched, when you're talking about ongoing success at the box office and in popular culture as a whole.

That's why Batman and Spider-man remain top of the tree culturally, and why I'm not worried about the next Superman film doing well, as long as they actually get the character right this time.

I think Marvel really should have taken something of a break while they worked out how the X-Men and FF4 fit into this universe. It's okay to make movies about lesser characters, but you can't structure the whole damn thing around them. They performed a miracle with phase 1 by elevating well known, second tier characters to top tier status, but you don't get to repeat that twice.

Hubris meant they thought they could repeat the success with third tier characters, and that wasn't ever going to work.
See, I think the major heroes are a bit of a writers crutch. Fans are willing to forgive some significant storytelling gaps just because they have history with the characters. Plus you have DECADES of polish on the majors, so naturally they have more vetted material to mine. Though even there you see the same damn villains, time and time again.

I'd say Gunn with GOTG and SS shows that with a good character to base the performance on, an actor willing to elevate the material, and a story that makes actual sense, ANY hero can be good. Take Drax for example. Typical bog standard comic book 'tank' character, but given an emotional ONE LINE backstory, a clear motivation, some fun character quirks, and an actor immersed in the role and BOOM, fan favorite. Could you base an entire film on Drax, probably not, the schtick gets old. But that's true for virtually ALL heroes, which is why we get so much villain and side character development in even Batman or Superman films.
 

FunkMiller

Gold Member
See, I think the major heroes are a bit of a writers crutch. Fans are willing to forgive some significant storytelling gaps just because they have history with the characters. Plus you have DECADES of polish on the majors, so naturally they have more vetted material to mine. Though even there you see the same damn villains, time and time again.

I'd say Gunn with GOTG and SS shows that with a good character to base the performance on, an actor willing to elevate the material, and a story that makes actual sense, ANY hero can be good. Take Drax for example. Typical bog standard comic book 'tank' character, but given an emotional ONE LINE backstory, a clear motivation, some fun character quirks, and an actor immersed in the role and BOOM, fan favorite. Could you base an entire film on Drax, probably not, the schtick gets old. But that's true for virtually ALL heroes, which is why we get so much villain and side character development in even Batman or Superman films.

For me, decades of proof exists with the comic book industry. The same ones were consistently on top. The same applies to movies, now the comic industry is pretty much dead.
 

jason10mm

Gold Member
For me, decades of proof exists with the comic book industry. The same ones were consistently on top. The same applies to movies, now the comic industry is pretty much dead.
Well, if you cherry pick, then this is true. Always some gems out there. And yes, some characters, like Batman, Wolverine, and Spiderman, just have some sort of sonic resonance with the usual comic fanbase.

But I tells yeah, when my "Dial H for Hero" film comes out, it's gonna be YUGE and you will regret tossing all those old comics in the trash :p
 
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